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July 11, 2016

Tolkien Tuesday: "The Children of Hurin"

Next up in my “Tolkien Tuesday” series, is
The Children of Hurin.

This was the ‘newest’ of the main Tolkien book when I began collecting Tolkien books. After seeing
The Lord of the Rings films, I became interested in the books.
For Christmas 2001, my parents got me the one-volume edition hardback
with cover artwork by John Howe: the one of Gandalf walking. This worked
out very well, because A) it was cheaper for
them. Not that things were extremely rough financially, but money saved
potentially means more gifts :P (when you have a set budget). B) I
wanted
The Lord of the Rings in hardback, so that’s what I got J That’s going back quite a few years. I still own that edition for
sentimental reasons, and will give that, as well my older edition of The Hobbit (the same as my 70th anniversary edition but older.) to my future kids someday.

So, The Children of Hurin became the first NEW Tolkien book I
ever got. Since this book onwards are so new, there’s fewer editions of
them. My copy is the hardback edition.

The dustjacket features artwork by Alan Lee, which is a traditional
glossy type. Removing it, the book underneath is blue with Tolkien’s
logo and book title embossed in gold. The interior art is on both
plasticized paper as color illustrations; and pencil artwork
all throughout. At the rear is a fold-out sheet of a map of Beleriand.

And that’s really about it for the hardback edition of The Children of Hurin.

Why did I get it: since this is a new Tolkien book (well, nearly 10
years old now..) due to it being new, that was pretty much the only
standard hardback edition available. I got it because it could very well
be the last new Middle-earth material published,
not counting future anniversary, deluxe, expanded or illustrated
editions of existing text.

Who would I recommend this edition to: This EDITION, not BOOK….well,
anyway who wants to celebrate the fact that it’s more Middle-earth
material, in hardback format. In stand hardback edition, this is pretty
much it.

“Should I wait for a better one?”: Well, since it’s so new, I doubt there will be a better one…save for 20th anniversary edition or older, but that’s not guaranteed. It’s still in print so may as well get it!

Overall: This book may be ‘unnecessary’ to some due to the fact that fragments or portions have been published before in
The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, as well as The
History of Middle-earth. This is the first time that the entire tale has
been published between its own covers, and focussing on the beginning
and ending of the story, with minimal editing
involved. Alan Lee’s artwork compliments the story quite well, as well
literally giving us a look into the past of Middle-earth history, and one of Tolkien's earliest tales.